Chile

Development of the Armed Forces

French influence was perceptible in the Chilean Army
from the
mid-nineteenth century up to the War of the Pacific.
However,
following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War
of 1870-
71, admiration of Prussian military institutions grew.
This led to
the appointment in 1885 of a German, Captain Emil Körner,
who had
fought with distinction against France, to reorganize the
Chilean
military instruction system. On beginning his duties in
1886,
Körner reorganized the General Bernardo O'Higgins Military
Academy,
inaugurated a staff school (the War Academy), and quickly
consolidated the growing German influence in the Chilean
Army.

When most of the army sided with the winning
congressional
forces (Congresionalistas) in the Civil War of 1891,
Körner acted
as chief of the General Staff and was largely credited
with the
victories of the army. In that war, the majority of the
navy also
supported the congressional faction. However, the new
torpedo
gunboats, the Lynch and the Condell (the
only major
naval units that supported the president), scored a
spectacular
victory when they attacked and sank the flagship of the
congressional fleet, the ironclad Blanco Encalada,
in
Valparaíso harbor on the night of April 23.

After the Civil War, Körner, now a general, was joined
by
thirty-six other German instructors and was confirmed as
chief of
staff of the army, a position he held until 1910. German
instructors organized the army into four divisions and
developed
the General Staff. German reforms also included
establishment of
the Noncommissioned Officers' School (Escuela de
Suboficiales y
Clases) and other military schools.

The expansion of the navy continued in the decade
following the
Civil War, under the added impetus of an increasingly
bitter
boundary dispute with Argentina. The danger of war was
defused as
both countries agreed to mediation by King Edward VII of
Britain.
The mediation resulted in the General Arbitration Treaty
of 1902,
under which all subsequent territorial disputes with
Argentina were
settled until the late 1970s.

Chile's military aviation was officially inaugurated in
February 1913 with the creation of the army's Captain
Ávalos Prado
Military Aviation School (Escuela de Aeronáutica Militar
"Capitán
Ávalos Prado"--EAM) at El Bosque, outside Santiago. In
1915
aircraft participated in the annual military maneuvers for
the
first time. The shortage of aircraft caused by World War I
severely
impeded the development of Chilean military aviation. With
the end
of the war in 1918, a dozen British fighter monoplanes
were
obtained to equip the First Aviation Company. As early as
1916,
naval officers had also undertaken flight training at the
EAM. The
end of the war in Europe permitted the formation of the
Naval
Aviation Service (Servicio de Aviación Naval).

In 1921 the Chilean government contracted for the
services of
a British naval and air mission. The EAM was also
reorganized, and
additional aircraft were acquired. In 1924 a German air
mission
arrived and was entrusted primarily with the development
of civil
aviation. It was precluded from overt involvement in the
development of the Chilean military and naval air arms by
the
Treaty of Versailles.

The military and naval air services were merged as the
Chilean
Air Force (Fuerza Aérea de Chile--FACh) on March 21, 1930,
thereby
becoming the world's fourth independent military air arm.
The
formation of the FACh coincided with a growing economic
crisis that
necessitated cutbacks in the armed forces, severe
curtailment of
procurements, and a steady attrition of fielded matériel.
Demoralized as a result of pay reductions and the
political chaos
then rampant in the country because of the
Great Depression (see
Glossary), the Chilean Navy staged a work stoppage from
August to
November 1931. The mutiny finally collapsed after the air
force
bombed the fleet. Although little physical damage was
done, this
event significantly affected naval morale and the
subsequent
development of the navy by demonstrating the vulnerability
of
warships to air attack.

In the early 1930s, during the Great Depression, the
army was
reduced from four to three divisions, and its troop
strength was
reduced to 12,000. An improvement in the economic
situation in the
mid-1930s, however, permitted an expansion back to four
divisions.

Chile remained officially neutral during most of World
War II,
although it sold its copper at a fixed price only to the
United
States; however, a perfunctory declaration of war on the
Axis
Powers was made in February 1945. As was the case for most
other
neutral armed forces, the war years were lean ones for the
Chilean
military, which was forced to rely on its own resources
for the
maintenance of increasingly obsolete matériel.

Despite Germany's defeat in the two world wars, German
influence remained stronger in the Chilean Armed Forces as
a whole
than in those of any other Latin American country.
However, the
navy--founded largely by British, Irish, and North
American
mercenaries and commanded in its formative years by Thomas
Cochrane, one of the most brilliant British naval officers
of the
day--consciously modeled itself on the British Royal Navy.
In the
early 1990s, the Chilean Navy continued to show a strong
British
influence, which had been reinforced by British training
missions
until the eve of World War II. The navy, not immune to the
German
influences at work on the army for more than half a
century,
achieved a synthesis of the better elements of the
Prussian
military and British naval traditions. However, it did not
lose its
essentially British orientation, underlined in its
repeated return
to British shipyards for new matériel. As in the case of
the army,
the influence of United States naval missions has been
largely
confined to the areas of tactical and operational
doctrine.

The FACh also owed its early independent existence to
the
activities of British training missions during the 1920s.
Like the
Chilean Navy, the FACh retained certain Prussian
influences,
deriving mostly from the military and naval air services
from which
it had been formed. However, the FACh probably has been
the most
receptive of Chile's uniformed services to United States
influence.
A succession of United States air-training missions began
in the
early 1940s.

Chile has exercised a strong formative influence on the
armed
forces of other Latin American countries. The armed forces
of
Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and El Salvador have come
under the
tutelage of Chilean military missions, in some cases for
lengthy
periods. Many of the smaller republics, including
Nicaragua and
Paraguay, have sent officer personnel for postgraduate
training in
Chilean military schools. The navy also has exerted
considerable
influence on the Colombian and Ecuadorian navies. The
Ecuadorian
Navy was effectively established under Chilean guidance
and has
continued a long-standing arrangement whereby Ecuadorian
naval
cadets have received part of their training in Chile.